Resources

Books

Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, Joshua Bloom and Walter E. Martin, Jr. Offers a comprehensive history of the Black Panther Party that explores the combination of revolutionary commitment and historical circumstance that made its emergence possible.

Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Cedric J. Robinson. Argues that black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents, not to European models of Marxism, which downplay the significance of black people and communities as agents of change and resistance.

The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, Vijay Prashad. Unveils a political history of both a utopian concept and global movement—the idea of the Third World. The book chronicles the rise and fall of the Third World, and offers an alternative future, grounded in an anti-imperialist vision.

Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks & the Regimes of Race in American Theater & Film Before World War II, Cedric J. Robinson. Illuminates how racial beliefs and capitalism grew in parallel, demonstrating how the needs of American business determined the construction of racial regimes promoted in the theater and in motion pictures.

Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Robin D.G. Kelley. Based on a belief that to make a better world we must first imagine it, the book unearths the freedom dreams of black activists and thinkers over the past century who have been committed to remaking the world.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Judith Butler. Begins by questioning the category of “woman” and how it is socially performed—arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, “essential” notion of the female, or even of sex or gender.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney. Providing a connection between capitalism, enslaved Africans as capital, and the modern economy, the book offers a guide to where Africa has come from, where it is going, and a path towards genuine development for the people of Africa.

In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Christina Sharpe. Interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and everyday representations of Black life, illustrating how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and delineating what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.

Never Meant to Survive: Genocide and Utopias in Black Diasporic Communities, João Costa Vargas. A historical, political, and social assessment of anti-black genocide and the liberatory struggles that arose to resist it. Based on fine-grained accounts of community life at the street level, the book is a call for the destruction of the conditions that foster the marginalization of black communities.

Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era, Ashley D. Farmer. Examines black women’s political, social, and cultural engagement with Black Power ideals and organizations, drawing on a vast and untapped array of black women’s artwork, political cartoons, manifestos, and political essays that they produced as members of groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Congress of African People.

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, INCITE! Gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the “non-profit industrial complex,” offering a biting critique of the quietly devastating role it plays in managing dissent. INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans People of Color Against Violence is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing.

Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, Joy James. Offers an analysis of the history and practice of black feminisms, drawing on political theory, history, and cultural studies. Brings into the spotlight images of black female agency and intellectualism in radical and anti-radical political contexts, focusing on the invisible or the forgotten.